In today's distributed computing environments, security is of the utmost importance. Malicious actors often utilize this ease of accessibility and anonymity to attack users' computing systems remotely across public networks and private networks. For example, the malicious actors can plant viruses, Trojans, or other malicious software in available content in order to attack the users' computing systems and steal sensitive information from the users. Likewise, the malicious actors can perform direct attacks on the user's computing systems across the networks.
When a malicious actor gains access to a user's computing system or network, significant time is required to figure out how the malicious actor gained access, what actions did the malicious actor perform, whether the malicious actors still has access, and on what computing systems does the malicious actor still have access. Often times to determine the fallout of the malicious actor's attack, users must perform detailed research and investigation such as digital forensics (e.g. file system analysis and log analysis). Digital Forensics relies upon using secondary and tertiary data points that reside on the computing system to make guesses about what actually happened. Unfortunately, just like criminals in the physical world, the malicious actor knows how to cover its tracks so that the evidence of the breach is not usually there anymore.
Accordingly, there is a need for increased efficiency and quality of incident response in identifying and addressing security concerns in computing systems and networks.